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Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Gulf crisis: A lesson in reputation management

Lurking below the surface of the Gulf crisis, are rival, yet
troubled, attempts by Qatar and its detractors to use sports to boost soft
power and/or launder tarnished images of their autocracies.

Ironically, the crisis threatens to have levelled the
playing field in a bitter media and public diplomacy war that was covert prior
to the seven-week-old Saudi-UAE-Bahraini-led diplomatic and economic boycott of
Qatar. If anything, the Gulf crisis has emerged as a case study of the pitfalls
of reputation management in which sports is an important tool. On balance, it
so far has had different effects on the reputations of three of the key
protagonists.

It has also served to highlight the pot-blames-the-kettle-character
of the Gulf crisis, most recently with the disclosure that North
Koreans were employed not only in Qatar on World Cup-related projects, but
also on a UAE military base that hosts US forces. The disclosure of relations
with North Korea is awkward at a time of increased tension between North
Korea and the United States over the pariah state’s ballistic missile and nuclear
program.

A Washington-based Saudi dissident group, the Institute for
Gulf Affairs, recently published a memo reportedly from the State Department as
well as emails from the hacked account of Yousef al-Otaiba, the high-profile
UAE ambassador to the United States, that asserted that a UAE company, Al-Mutlaq
Technologies, had bought $100 million worth of weapons from North Korea for
use in the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.

Qatar, plagued by allegations that its successful bid for
the 2022 World Cup hosting rights lacked integrity and that its migrant labour
regime amounted to slavery, has scored reputational gains in the Gulf crisis
despite the recent revelations related to North Korea. While the revelations
reinforced concerns about Qatar’s policies and labour regime, they also
suggested that issues at stake in the Gulf crisis constituted regional problems
rather than exclusive concern about just one of the Gulf states.

The UAE, a driving force in the anti-Qatar campaign that
uses the hosting of international sporting events to boost its image, has
suffered because of its failure and that of its alliance partners to garner
widespread international support for its tactics and demands that were
perceived as unreasonable, unactionable, and designed to undermine Qatari
sovereignty and independence. The UAE’s North Korea link as well as allegations
by human rights groups, denied by the
government in Abu Dhabi, that the UAE was backing the
abuse of prisoners in Yemen has done little to enhance the Gulf state’s
reputation.

Qatar and the UAE’s North Korean links could put the two
Gulf states in the Trump administration’s firing line as it considers how to
respond the Pyongyang’s most recent ballistic missile test that the pariah
state claims would allow it to target
any US city. Pressuring countries to back away from economic relations with
North Korea, the Trump administration recently extended
sanctioning of Sudan for among other things not being fully committed to
implementing United Nations sanctions on the country.

Saudi Arabia promised Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir,
during a visit earlier this month to the kingdom as well as the UAE, that it would continue to see
improvement of relations between Sudan and the United States despite the
African country’s refusal to join the Saudi-UAE-led boycott of Qatar.

Neither the Gulf crisis nor sports has done much for
Bahrain, its image tarnished by its brutal suppression in 2011 of a popular
revolt with the help of Saudi and UAE forces, and its subsequent repression of
opposition forces and continuous violations of basic human rights. Worse even,
the Gulf crisis has focussed attention on Bahrain’s
failed effort to use sports to polish its tarnished image and put it in the
spotlight as an example of the degree to which smaller Gulf states risk losing
their ability to chart an independent course.

As the quarrelling Gulf states pour millions of dollars into
hiring public relations and lobbying firms in Washington and elsewhere with the
UAE as the largest spender, Qatar can shrug off in both reputational and
financial terms a $51,000
fine by world soccer body FIFA. Qatar was fined because its national team
wore jerseys in a World Cup qualifier against South Korea that featured a
drawing of Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The drawing has come to
symbolize a wave of Qatari nationalism sparked by the Gulf crisis.

The media war potentially could enter a new phase with the acquisition
by a relatively unknown Saudi businessman, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel, of an up
to 50 percent stake in Independent Digital News and Media, the holding
company that publishes Britain’s left-wing The Independent daily. The
Independent has consistently been critical of the kingdom. Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian
owner of the Independent’s parent company, ESI Media, recently saw his
shareholding fall below 50 percent.

At the bottom line, the escalating media and public
diplomacy war between Qatar and its Gulf detractors is as likely, as is evident
with the revelations about North Korea, to put on public display the
protagonists’ hidden skeletons, as it is likely to contribute to attempts to
polish tarnished reputations and influence attitudes and policies in Western
capitals.

A key tool in the protagonists’ quivers, sports is proving
to be a double-edged sword as it too has the potential of shining the light on
practices and policies Gulf states would prefer to keep out of the public
domain.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile